


Die Vorstellungen

by peachplumputrefaction



Series: Puella Magi Café: Irrgarten [1]
Category: Mahou Shoujo Madoka Magika | Puella Magi Madoka Magica
Genre: Akemi Homura is Wrong: A Thesis, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Canon Compliant, F/F, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-27
Updated: 2019-04-16
Packaged: 2019-09-28 21:09:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,616
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17190452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peachplumputrefaction/pseuds/peachplumputrefaction
Summary: Homura and Mami celebrate Madoka's first fight at a local magical girl cafe. Homura talks to their server about her concerns about Madoka.





	1. Strawberry Milkshake

Nana wiped down the counter the moment the cat got off of it. It wasn’t the sort of discomfort that she could place. She liked cats, and it’s not like he’s particularly strange for a cat, other than the ears. He’s even friendly. It’s just that he kinda… stared at her, as if he was confused about something, for hours during her shift, and she did not much care for it. The cat’s white tail swirled and disappeared behind a column. Nana shivered and continued her work. What a creep.

“--est thing is the loneliness, but you’ll have us when you start, so hopefully it won’t be as bad.” The bell above the door chimed, and three middle schoolers stepped in. The girl speaking is a regular and smiled at her companions as they took in their surroundings. Mami sat down in her usual alcove, and the others followed her.

“Welcome to Irrgarten! Who are your friends?” “Oh! Hi Ms. Amachi, these are some friends from school, Mses. Kaname and Akemi. Say hi, you two.” Mami’s pink-haired friend waved, and the other just kind of emphatically nodded and sunk back further into her chair. Mami continued, addressing her friends: “This is a cafe for girls like us, so if you want to meet more people or hang out, girls come from all over to spend time here.”

After some introductions, Madoka spoke up. “Your cafe is lovely, I’ve never seen a place that looks like this.” “It’s not actually _my_ cafe, but thank you! My boss picked out the furniture.” Nana took a moment to reminisce about the first time she walked in here. She remembered being floored by how ethereally pretty everything was, but now the chaotic jewel tones and mismatched Rococo furniture and dramatic, sweeping curtains hung across the ceiling just feel homey. “Anyway, what can I get you?”

Ms. Akemi craned her neck to look at the menu hanging above the counter. “Um, could I please get the strawberry milkshake with whipped cream?”

Nana nodded, jotting notes on a small order pad, and went to prepare their drinks.

☙

Homura straightened the cuff of her sleeve. This was her third chance to meet Madoka, and she still felt like she was messing it up somehow. Thinking back, she wasn’t sure exactly what she was doing wrong, but the feeling wasn’t going away no matter what she did to dissuade herself. Maybe it was the new environment (how had Mami never taken us here before?), or the fact that Kyubey just walked by and did a double take upon seeing her, or the fact that Madoka was sitting so close to her on the bench, or the fact that Madoka smelled like tangerines. She wondered how long she could freeze time just to stay like this, with her, exactly as she is.  Hearing Mami clear her throat pulled her out of her introspection.

“Ms. Kaname, I’m sorry it took me so long to actually get around to celebrating your becoming a magical girl,” Mami said. “I had hoped to do it right after you transformed for the first time, but I guess I just got sidetracked.”

“That’s totally okay! I’m glad just to spend time together, and now we have a new friend, so it’s a bit like a party.” Madoka smiled, reaching over the table and taking Mami and Homura’s hands in hers.

Homura drew her hand away, plucking a sugar cube from the dish in front of her and fumbling with it. “Um, Madoka, about your wish-- do you think it was worth trading your soul for?”

“Of course I do. Cats have souls too, and I couldn’t just do nothing about what happened, especially if I had the power to save her.” Madoka glanced down at her satchel as a black cat poked its nose out. “Even if I didn’t have a wish, I couldn’t have just left her on the street. I wouldn’t ever have forgiven myself.”

Homura frowned. Whether or not she related to the reasoning behind Madoka’s wish was irrelevant, but her heart dropped at the familiarity of her words. She scratched at the sugar cube in her hands, scraping granules of sugar onto the table. _Two. I’ve had two chances to fix this now, but I’m not strong enough to save her._ She thought about Madoka’s transformation. She thought about Kyubey. She thought about the nature of souls. She thought about Walpurgisnacht. She thought about a body lying broken on the pavement. She thought about the nature of a soul. She thought about a soul being crushed by despair. She thought about despair blooming outward to devour the world. She thought about Madoka’s transformation. She thought about the nature of her s

“Is there anything else I can get you?” Homura blinked, realizing that everyone’s orders have already arrived. Several cubes’ worth of sugar sat in a pile beneath her fingers. Ms. Amachi was smiling benignly at her. Mami thanked their server and asked for milk with her tea.

Homura watched Ms. Amachi deftly set down first two cups of black tea, then two chocolate chip coffee cakes, then a pale pink drink buried under a mountain of whipped cream. She smelled the warm, sweet dark chocolate drizzled over the cakes from across the table. She heard the sound of metal on porcelain as Madoka stirred two cubes of sugar into her tea. She breathed deliberately, checking her pulse at her wrist. She felt better. Fragile, but better.

Madoka addressed the group between sips of her tea. “So, I know that all witches aren’t like Ms. Class President from earlier, but are there any general behaviors I should watch out for?”

“It’s important to remember that witches are as varied and unpredictable as we are, but there are a couple commonalities that might be useful for you to know. For example…” Nope. Homura did not want to listen to Mami talk about witches right now. She slipped out of her chair as unobtrusively as possible and walked to the counter.

☙

The girl with the braids and the unusual name sat down at the counter across from Nana. She looked a little frazzled. Nana put on her ‘I’m trying my very best to be helpful’ face and asked, “Sorry, did you not like your drink?”

“N-no, it was good! Thank you.” She looked behind herself at the all but untouched drink she left at the table. “Sorry, I did like it, I just got distracted.”

“Anything I can help with? And it’s Ms. Akemi, right?”

“Homura is fine, and… probably not?” Homura crooked her head. “I don’t super want to talk about it.”

“That’s fine. Is there anything you would like to talk about? Or I could grab you a coffee.”

“Oh, uh, no thanks, I don’t care for coffee.”

Nana nodded and was about to turn away when Homura asked, “Uh, does anyone else come here but people like us?”

“Like, boys? Or adults? No, it’s pretty much only girls from your age to my age, but like Mami said, they come from all over. We had a little group from America come in last week. But aside from the weird cat, it’s mostly just girls around our ages.”

“Weird cat?”

“Yeah, he’s friendly. He comes in with girls and my boss a lot, so I think he lives in the neighborhood. He’s white and pink and got four ears?”

Homura lifted her head and opened her mouth, then closed it again. She blinked a couple times, as if confused by something. “Do you, um... How did you come to work here?”

“Well, I walked in about three years ago, and Boss made me a drink and a job offer. It happened pretty quickly.” She shrugged. There wasn’t much more to it than that, other than a twenty minute conversation detailing exactly how she got here.

After a couple minutes of silence, Homura furrowed her brow. “I have, I guess, a question, if you’re not too busy.” She started fiddling with the button closure on her sleeve.

“Shoot.”

“I, um… (I don’t actually know how to start…) How would you stop a friend from making a bad decision?”

“I mean. It depends on the situation, but I really try to stay away from intervening in other people’s decisions. I’ve found it’s better to trust that my friends are as capable as I am and to just talk to them about why I’m worried.”

“What if… what if you know it’s going to end badly for them, and you can’t tell them why?”

Nana sighed. “Do you treasure the friends you have, and do you consider them precious?”

“Well, I do. I love my friends very much, and they are very precious to me.”

“Then you wouldn’t want to hurt them by trying to control the life they live or the person they are.” Nana smiled, trying to soften the harshness of the words she said. “Look at your friends.”

☙

Homura turned around. Mami and Madoka were almost finished with their coffee cakes. She couldn’t make out what they were saying from this distance, but she could see Madoka’s lips curl up at the edges, and the way she brushed a stray hair behind her ear as she laughed. Her eyes were bright pink and warm, like a fig at the end of summer, and darted across the cafe to meet Homura’s. Madoka waved, directing her warmth and radiance toward her. Homura wished, for a second, that she could bottle that brilliant light and keep it with her. “Your friends are happy, and they’re safe. As long as they’re happy and safe, there’s no need to try to play god in their lives.

  
As long as she’s safe. Homura thanked Nana and stood, leaving some change on the counter as she went to rejoin her friends. _As long as she’s safe._


	2. Mont Blanc

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Homura seeks advice following Mami's death

As Nana unlocked the front door of Cafe Irrgarten to start her evening shift, the cat darted out and down the street, almost tripping her in his haste.  _ Huh _ , she thought,  _ what in an empty cafe could have spooked him? _ She stepped inside backward, transfixed on the fluffy white tail as it disappeared around a corner, and jumped when she heard a cool voice behind her.

“What do you recommend?”

Nana whirled around. “GOD hell, sorry, you startled me. Uh, what?” Of course. Of course, it was the spooky one. She’d been coming in with Mami and her friends starting a couple weeks ago, but more often she’s come by herself. She didn’t talk much during her visits, except to order, and that one time where she confronted Sayaka and Madoka when they were having lunch, and then it was just to say some cryptic stuff about staying who you are that made everyone else at the table uncomfortable and made Nana shoo her out. Who knew how she got in the cafe before opening.

“Do you have a recommendation?” She was seated with her face down on the table, one hand hanging in the air, one finger extended toward the wall-mounted menu. On closer inspection, she didn’t look too great. Her clothes were torn and wrinkled, and she had a long scrape up one leg.

“Jeez, what happened to you?”

Homura raised her head, just a little, and rested her chin on her arm, giving Nana a clear look at her face. Nana felt a pang of guilt for her judginess earlier. “I’d prefer something sweet, if possible.”

“Uh, yeah, ok. A popular dish right now is this seasonal one.”

“I’ll take that and the, uh, Yume tea. Thanks.”

_ Okay, I guess we’re ignoring the idol outfit and the fact this five foot nothing middle schooler looks like she got hit by a hurricane. _ Nana turned away and started to prepare Homura’s order.

Nana stole another glance at her as she was steeping the tea. Homura had let her head drop back to the table face-first. It unsettled her to see Homura so beat up.

It’s not like she’d never seen patrons come in in states like this-- girls did come in in worse repair than she thought was normal for a cafe aimed at teenage girls-- but from the brief interactions she’d had with her and the (curt) (tense) conversations she’d overheard between her and her friends, Homura seemed put together and…. kinda untouchable in a way that made it jarring to see her roughed up like this.

Nana started, “Uh, are you--”

“No, but thanks for asking.”

Alright. She set the tea and a cherry blossom mont blanc down on the counter and dragged a chair out to sit in front of Homura. She sat with her ankle crossed over her knee for a couple minutes before Homura broke.

“What are you doing?”

“Just sittin’.”

“Could you ‘just sit’ a couple feet back?”

“Well, yeah, probably.” Nana pointedly stayed where she was. She wasn’t sure what was going on, and definitely wasn’t equipped to counsel this child, but she was going to do her best, at least until she could ascertain what’s going on and whether to get her to a professional.

Homura looked at her blankly, then rolled her eyes and resettled her face into the table. She was picking what looked suspiciously unlike dirt from under her nails.

“You haven’t touched your food. Or your tea.”

“Astute observation.”

Nana sighed. “How long were you here before I got in?”

“About half an hour.”

“Are you going to be keeping me company like this for the rest of my shift? As lovely as this is, I may have other customers.”

A shrug instead of a response.

Nana stood, turned her chair around, sat back down in it backwards, and propped her head on her elbows on the seat back, clearly pantomiming those old school anti-drug campaign spokespeople from American cartoons. “You know, that dessert is worth almost as much as my hourly wage?”

Homura quirked an eyebrow.

“Yup. And like, that isn’t even to say I don’t get paid well, because I do. And I understand why they’re so expensive; I’ve helped make them for the past two years, and a lot goes into them. We make the pickled sakura for the puree and garnish in-house, and infuse fresh blossoms for the whipped cream.”

“Sorry, but why are you telling me this?”

“Because it’s a shame to see it go to waste; it’s something my boss and I are pretty proud of, and it’s only available this month.” Homura chuckled, then laughed, then wheezed. Nana smiled apprehensively, unsure of what she could have said that was so funny, before continuing. “And because it’s interesting. Or at least, I think it is.”

Homura, still stuck between laughing and trying to catch her breath, picked her head up off her arm and cut through the outer shell of the mont blanc with a small wooden pick.

“Yeah, I guess it is interesting, and it’s novel for this dish to be available only this month.”

“I think it’s a nice…. homage to the season, I guess. Do you ever go out for the flower-viewing?”

“I used to go every year with my family until I got too sick and had to stop. Since then, though, I only have once, with a friend.”

“Oh, nice! I stopped going for medical reasons, too, and never wound up going back. I hope to go back soon though with my whole class.”

Homura hummed to indicate that she was still listening, but the protective detachment that Nana had until then mistaken for contempt had at this point been carefully built back up.

“Did you get in a fight with Madoka?”

Homura blinked, then fixed her gaze on Nana for the first time since she came in.  _ Come to think of it, has she  _ ever _ looked directly at me? _ Nana couldn’t place the expression on her face, but tentatively interpreted it as surprise.

“Er, sorry, I didn’t mean to catch you quite that far off guard. Uh, just-- that’s who you went to watch the flowers with, right? You come in with her and Mami sometimes…”

Homura winced and turned back to her dessert. She no longer appeared to be listening, so Nana let herself trail off.

Nana blushed. She didn’t mean to hit a sore spot. She wasn’t normally this bad at talking to people. Her friends told her she had a knack for anticipating people’s needs and catering to them, and she took some pride in that ability. It occurred to her that she probably should get something to smooth things over, so she dismissed herself and retreated to the kitchen.

 

When Nana returned, apology milkshake in tow, Homura was sitting upright and was using the wagashi pick to pluck the pickled sakura from the top of the mont blanc. Her tea sat on the counter, untouched and no longer giving off steam. She didn’t appear to have noticed Nana come in.

Nana set the milkshake on the counter, sliding it an inch or two closer when Homura didn’t respond to the glass clacking against the lacquered countertop.

Homura began taking the flowers apart, arranging their preserved petals in concentric circles around the mont blanc. “I…. I don’t think I can even begin to explain to you why I’m upset. And even if I did, I don’t think it would be of any use.”

“Okay, well, if you want to talk to someone, I’m around. Would you prefer time alone?”

“I don’t think it would make much of a difference.”

Nana nodded and set about trying to find tasks to busy herself with.

She took inventory of the pantry, which was unchanged since she closed the previous evening. She wiped down the display glass for the pastries, which was already impeccably clean. She offered samples to pedestrians outside, who, as usual, walked by as if she and the cafe were invisible. She set out food for the cat, who was still a creep that didn’t seem to eat. She served other customers, who shot Homura sympathetic glances but were otherwise unfazed by her appearance. She worried over her patrons, who nodded solemnly when one walked past Homura and clapped a hand on her back, saying “we’ve all been there.” She fetched a bag of frozen peas and a small packet of cookies for that patron, whose gesture got her swiftly punched in the eye and told that “no, we all  _ haven’t _ ‘been there.’” She smiled and waved as each of her guests but one eventually left.

 

It was past ten before Homura looked up from her plate. She sighed and turned to face Nana, who had been contemplating whether to just start working on closing with Homura still there or not. Homura started, “I’m, uh…. (shit.) She…. Mami Tomoe, I mean... I-- she’s gone…. She’s dead.”

Nana, stricken, sat down across from Homura. “I’m so sorry, I--I don’t know what to say. What happened? Are you okay? Let me get you another tea.” Nana had already started bustling about behind the counter when she remembered that Homura had two full drinks she hadn’t drunk, and, thinking she would look silly just stopping now, decided to fetch her customer a water instead.

“There was a, uh, there was this….” Homura shook her head and let her hands drop from the counter to her sides. “This is an impossible scenario to describe to you.”

“That’s fine, and if you don’t want to try that’s also okay. Why do you think it’s your fault?”

“I…. didn’t tell her something she needed to know. And it wasn’t like I couldn’t tell her; I could have, and I should have. I just, didn’t want to? So she went into a fight not knowing she couldn’t win alone--” Homura’s voice broke.

Nana sat down at a stool next to Homura as she recollected herself. Nana didn’t understand, and it was sounding increasingly like she should call authorities, but she held off. Mitakihara City Police Department had a reputation for making problems like missing girls disappear if it couldn’t solve them quickly, and she wasn’t going to make this girl retraumatize herself in front of strangers twice in one night. “Is it okay if I ask why you didn’t tell her?”

Homura prickled. “It’s not like I--” She gulped some air, then exhaled slowly before restarting. “That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out. She’s one of my first mentors, and a friend. I didn’t  _ want _ her to die this time.”

Nana furrowed her brow at Homura’s word choice but said nothing.

Homura looked sternly (or, maybe not sternly? maybe consternatedly.) at Nana. “I’m going to try to explain what happened now.”

Nana steeled herself. Mami was her first regular, and after over a year of idle chats over hot chocolates and kahlua cupcakes, she had come to think of her as a friend. Mami taste-tested Nana’s first original pastry recipe for the shop. News of her loss was hard, and harder still from someone she didn’t really know. “Okay. Don’t force yourself to explain what you don’t want to.”

 

Homura started with her afternoon and worked backwards.

Nana sat across the counter, letting Homura’s story sink in. She asked a couple questions but for the most part let Homura do the talking.

Homura kept insisting that her actions would make sense “in context,” that what she did would be justified if only Nana knew the whole story, skipping further and further back until she got to her first conversation with Madoka, the  _ real _ first conversation with Madoka, almost twelve of her years ago. She told Nana about magical girls, about witches, about Madoka, about the fight, about the fight after the fight. About this month that had been new to everyone but her 97 times now. About how by that point, in that version of the world, she’d probably lost three friends rather than one. “I thought that it would get easier, that taking-- (fuck)  _ collateral damage _ , I guess-- would get easier, but it hasn’t. I don’t know how to keep going when I can’t keep her or Mami or anyone else from just--” She cut herself off, making a choked, gasping sound that Nana almost didn’t recognize as a sob.

Nana let her guest weep, tearlessly, for a long while.

When she calmed down, Nana pushed Homura’s water glass toward her. “I appreciate that you took the time to explain this to me; that took a lot of trust. I have a little bit of experience with the subject of time travel. Would you like me to offer you advice, or would you just like me to continue to listen while you work through this yourself?”

“I…. guess I want advice. I’m not getting anywhere on my own.”

Nana nodded, straightening up in her chair and taking a beat to gather her thoughts. “Have you ever heard of Laplace’s Demon?” After being met with silence, she continued, “It’s this theoretical creature that can calculate, at any given moment, the position and momentum of every atom in the universe. Since it knows exactly where everything is at once, this ‘demon’ can sorta predict the future. Isn’t that neat?”

“I don’t see your point.”

“You’re the demon.”

Homura lifted her head. “That’s…. Surprisingly rude, actually.”

“I mean, by redoing these, what is it? six weeks? over and over, you’re effectively running a simulation of what would happen if you did one thing or another.”

“Like saving Madoka’s cat myself to prevent her from making a wish to save it.”

“Right. So, by tweaking little things every once in a while, like saving that cat, you’re living a new future from the point where you wake up to the point where you either save Madoka or you don’t. You’re running this simulation over and over again to try to brute-force a future you can live with.”

“A future with Madoka.”

Nana frowned. “A future with Madoka, yes.”

“What does this have to do with Mami?”

“Everything. Just, give me a minute to get there. First though, talk to me about Mami. You told me about the day she died, but what else happened this month?”

Homura gave Nana a curious glance but complied. “As usual, she took Madoka under her wing and offered to teach her the basics, if she contracted. They ate lunch together and spent the afternoons at Mami’s apartment. Mami protected Madoka when they went out fighting. Mami told me a few times to keep away from her and the others, and that if I came back again she would have no choice but to fight me. When I arrived in the sweets witch’s labyrinth, she got the drop on me, and she and Madoka went off to fight without me.”

Nana nodded, and the two sat together in silence for a beat. 

“I guess…. I guess I know why I let her die.” Homura took a sip of her water. “I wanted to be the one Madoka was close to, not Mami. I wanted to be the one to protect Madoka.” Homura blinked hard a few times and curled in on herself, wrapping her arms around her knees.

Nana deliberated on her words before speaking. “I don’t want this to sound harsh, but I don’t really know how else to put it. You’ve lived this June nearly 100 times now, right?”

A nod.

“You’ve re-created this month for over a decade because you don’t want to lose someone you care about. In that time, you might have forgotten that these people-- all of them, not just Madoka-- are your real friends, and that you’re a real, human person?”

A grimace.

“Have you thought about the effect you’re having on your friends?” When Homura didn’t respond, Nana continued. “Your actions have an impact on this world. You know that, otherwise you wouldn’t have bothered trying to change Madoka’s fate.

“It’s important that you remember this, and that you encourage them to protect each other. You can’t be everywhere, and they can’t know what you know.” Nana paused, watching Homura pick at a ragged nail. “I think you can save more than just one person from this, if you work for it.”

 

By the time Ms. Amachi waved Homura off, dawn was breaking over the city skyline, casting the roofs of the very tallest buildings in gold. Homura rubbed her eyes. They stung from lack of sleep.

She was halfway home before she noticed him. He was doing that thing where he followed her without actually walking: every ten paces or so he would blip out of existence and back into it in some highly conspicuous place. You know. Like an asshole.

_ “What did you two talk about?” _

“Oh, you know, girl stuff.”

_ “I’m surprised at you. I thought you were a much better liar than that.” _

“Why the pretense, Kyubey? It’s not like you weren’t listening in on us anyway.”

_ “I’m afraid I couldn’t even if I tried.” _

Homura took a moment to congratulate herself. She had been trying for months to keep Kyubey from spying on her, and it seemed she’d finally—

_ “The first problem is you, purposely making it a little tricky for me to keep an eye on you. But, obviously, it’s not impossible to work around that if I’m curious enough.” _

_ Obviously.  _ “Then what’s the actual obstacle?”

_ “Amachi Nana would be a useful ally, even if her wish could not overcome entropy, but for the life of me I can’t figure out how to make her hear me. I didn’t think it was possible, but after spending some time near her I’m sure of it: _

_ “Amachi Nana has no destiny.” _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am trying to figure out how to organize this so that it's easy to see which timeline I'm writing from, but am not sure how to balance accessibility to new readers later on versus ease for readers who have bookmarked the work and are waiting for updates. If anyone has any ideas, let me know!
> 
> Also, thank you very much for your support and for reading!

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! This is my first proper attempt at fanfiction. It's a part of a series I've been planning for a while and hope to continue to flesh out. It's a sort of ambitious first foray into the medium, especially with the time travel, so I'm trying my best to organize the work in pieces so that it's accessible to read whether you're reading it as it's coming out or later on (PLEASE let me know if this is not the case).
> 
> I don't plan on making it overly angsty, and it will have a happy ending, so I hope I don't make you worry too much about the characters!
> 
> Since this is the first piece of fiction I've published, I encourage you to let me know if there's anything I could do better!


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